At a freewheeling press conference Monday, former Mayor Kasim Reed vowed to reduce Atlanta’s murder rate and slammed his rivals in the upcoming mayoral election.
But he had only good things to say about the Atlanta Braves, who famously bolted the City of Atlanta for a new stadium in Cobb County just after Reed’s first reelection in 2013.
“I think you just said the ‘Atlanta Braves,’ so it’s all good,” Reed told a reporter who asked if he regretted letting the team decamp for the suburbs. “Looks to me like it all worked out.”
Reed added that the Braves’ move away from Turner Field made way for Georgia State University to have a stadium of its own and sparked the southward expansion of the university. He called the Braves’ new home of Cobb County “a partner” and said, “I’d make the same decision every day and twice on Sunday.”
When the Braves first announced the move in 2013, Reed said the city was “simply unwilling” to match Cobb’s promise of at least $450 million in public support to finance construction for a new facility.
At the time, Council members expressed shock that they were left out of negotiations with the franchise and business executives fretted about the fate of downtown.
It also marked the second sports franchise to leave the city on Reed’s watch, since the Atlanta Thrashers hockey franchise announced their move to Canada in 2011.
The future of Turner Field became a central piece of Reed’s second-term, and he helped steer an agreement to repurpose the ballpark to become a Georgia State football field that’s surrounded by a handful of new residential developments.
On Monday, Reed said he’s planning to go to the World Series to cheer the team on.
“So what?...They’re the ‘Atlanta Braves’ and they’re getting ready to win a World Championship.”
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Speaking of Kasim Reed, the Atlanta NAACP’s “rare repudiation” of the former mayor has received a repudiation of its own, the AJC’s Wilborn Nobles reports.
NAACP national President and CEO Derrick Johnson said Atlanta chapter President Richard Rose was wrong for singling out Reed for critiques and called for him to retract his previous statements.
“By issuing a public partisan statement opposing Mr. Reed's candidacy and by essentially endorsing other candidates, you clearly violated Article II, Section 2 of the Bylaws for Units of the NAACP," a letter from Janette McCarthy Wallace, the NAACP's general counsel, said. “You are engaging in conduct inimical to the best interest of the Association. Your conduct is not in accord with the NAACP's principles, aims and purposes."
Rose gave the AJC a “no comment" on Monday. But the former president of the Georgia NAACP wrote on Twitter that he was unhappy with the reaction from HQ.
“It is disappointing that @NAACP would tell any leader to not use their voice to speak about local issues," the Rev. James Woodall wrote.
Reed’s campaign also released a detailed rebuttal and he addressed the controversy at his press conference Monday.
“People are sick when they move to a point where they feel that they can say anything about me,” he said. “Let me tell you this, I’ll put Jesse Jackson’s endorsement of me up against a local chapter of the NAACP every single day of the week.”
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Councilman Andre Dickens is leaning hard into his endorsement from former Mayor Shirley Franklin.
She stars in his latest 30-second ad in the race for Atlanta mayor and calls him a “champion” for affordable housing and equity.
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For all the latest and the race for mayor, be sure to check out the AJC City Hall Team’s “Race for City Hall” column every Monday.
This week, Wilborn Nobles and J.D. Capelouto take took a closer look at the crosstabs of the AJC’s latest poll, including how age is affecting voters’ top issues. They’ve also got news on an ethics complaint against the PAC supporting Felicia Moore; details on early voting so far; a voter who confronted Kasim Reed over a City land deal she said hurt seniors; and accusations of doxxing from Moore’s camp.
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Is Medicaid expansion in Georgia being taken out of the social spending and climate change bill being drafted by Democrats in Congress?
U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are working hard to keep that from happening. But West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a moderate whose support for the bill is key to its passage, indicated to reporters Monday that he thinks the Medicaid provision needs to be taken out as Democrats work to reduce the price tag from $3.5 trillion to about $1.8 trillion.
Manchin said he agrees with elected officials in some existing expansion states, who say it’s unfair that they’re currently paying 10% of the program’s costs, while new states like Georgia wouldn’t be required to chip in anything.
“For states that held out to get rewarded with 100%, that’s not fair,” Manchin told reporters.
Ossoff and Warnock have argued that misses the bigger picture.
“275,000 Georgians in the gap; we’ve got to close the coverage gap,” Ossoff told a CNN reporter. “Spoke with Manchin about it today. Raphael and I are in hourly touch about it … Negotiations are ongoing.”
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Even with Medicaid expansion up in the air, Congressional Democrats are also “scrambling intensely behind-the-scenes” to include changes to immigration law in the social services bill, The Washington Post reports.
The most pressing question confronting Democrats is what to do about millions of undocumented immigrants seeking a path to legalization. One option under discussion is a plan to provide protected status that stops short of a path to citizenship.
Another, which is seen by some of the people with knowledge of the situation as something of a placeholder, is to include a proposal that would enable immigrants who arrived in the United States before 2010 to apply for a green card.
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Republicans in Congress are pushing back on a report by Rolling Stone magazine that said they were involved in planning pro-Donald Trump rallies in Washington on Jan. 6 that preceded the breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Two people who said they helped organize events that day spoke to the magazine and said U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was among the conservative Republicans involved in the planning.
But the Rome Republican’s spokesman denied that.
“Congresswoman Greene and her staff were focused on the Congressional election objection on the House floor and had nothing to do with planning of any protest,” Greene spokesman Nick Dyer wrote in an email to Rolling Stone.
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Georgia Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde face new fines for violating U.S. House rules that require masks to be worn on the floor. Neither appealed the fines, so the money will come out of their paychecks.
Both violations occurred on Sept. 21, according to press releases from the Ethics Committee.
Greene and other conservative Republicans have filed a lawsuit over the mask fines. Clyde has a separate lawsuit pending based on fines he received for violating rules requiring members to pass through metal detectors before coming onto the floor.
The fines could be among the topics discussed during the tele-town hall Greene is hosting on Wednesday evening at 7:05 p.m. Constituents can RSVP here to receive the login details.
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The Augusta Chronicle has a deep dive into one key difference between health care delivery systems in Georgia and South Carolina.
While Georgia has never approved a freestanding Emergency Department, South Carolina will soon have its 15th freestanding ER under construction just across the Georgia state line.
Advocates say they’re more accessible than large hospitals and more robust than Urgent Care centers. The Georgia General Assembly made freestanding ER’s a more likely possibility with a tweak to state law in 2019 and there are now six permits under consideration.
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U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock is joining the list of Georgia politicians with book deals.
Penguin Random House will publish Warnock’s memoir, “A Way Out of No Way; A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story,” in June 2022 – in the midst of his re-election campaign.
“A powerful preacher and a leading voice for voting rights and democracy, Senator Warnock has a once in a generation gift to inspire and lead us forward,” reads the promo. “A Way Out of No Way tells his remarkable American story for the first time.”
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As always, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
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